


The Cat Who Walks on Walls

by IreneADonovan



Series: Pixel [1]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Disabled Character, Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Charles in a Wheelchair, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutant Cat, Post-XMFC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IreneADonovan/pseuds/IreneADonovan
Summary: Post-XMFC AU. Erik and Raven came back. A few months later, someone leaves a mutant kitten on the doorstep. She proves to be the catalyst to get Charles and Erik to talk about what happened...EASTER EGG HUNT: Three custom fics, 1000 word minimum, up for grabs. See notes for details...





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to have been pure fluff and silliness, but it went sideways into angst...
> 
> EASTER EGGS: 
> 
> The first has to do with the source of the title and the cat's name. I borrowed them from a novel. Give me the author of the book they come from. My title differs from the novel title by one word. It is a science fiction novel, not one of the "Cat Who ___" mysteries. 
> 
> The second is a Jack Nicholson line delivered by Erik. I changed one word in the quote to play on lines from XMFC. (I exchanged an "a" for a "the.") Give me either the movie title or the name of the actress playing opposite Nicholson. (One winner for the movie title. One for the actress.) 
> 
> Post answers in the comments. Happy Hunting!

“Charles? Someone left you a present.” Erik's tone was odd, unreadable.

Charles wheeled out into the foyer, found Erik standing by the door, looking somewhere between irritated and puzzled, a small pet carrier in one hand, a note in the other.

“What is it?” Charles asked, peering into the carrier. “A kitten?” A kitten that was standing, suspended upside-down, on the roof of the carrier.

“The note says, 'Her name's Pixel. She's one of you.'”

“A mutant kitten,” Charles murmured, bemused. “Let's have a good look at you.” He lifted the carrier onto his lap and manipulated the catch.

Pixel was off like a shot. She sprinted across the foyer and up the window glass, pausing for a moment about six feet up before caroming off the sides of the staircase and disappearing.

Moments later, they heard a crash. “Professor,” Sean called, amazingly calm, probably mellowed by recreational substances, “there's a cat in here, and it just broke a lamp, that ugly purple one in the hall.”

Charles started to smile. He'd always hated that lamp.

Erik rolled his eyes. “Don't tell me you're thinking of keeping that creature.”

“Of course we're keeping her. She's a fellow mutant.”

**~xXx~**

Pixel, it turned out, was a perfectly healthy four-month-old kitten, according to the vet. Except she could walk on walls. And ceilings. And any other reasonably solid surface. Charles had been warned it was difficult to kitten-proof a house. Turned out it was just about impossible to Pixel-proof one.

She wasn't the cutest of kittens. In fact, she was a little funny-looking. She was tiny, even for a kitten, with slanty eyes and prominent cheekbones – part-Siamese was the vet's guess, though her coloring wasn't at all Siamese. She was mostly white, with black splotches on her head and back and a black tail. But she was friendly and sweet, when she wasn't in motion.

Friendly and sweet, even to Erik, who had no patience for her. He yelled at her every time she scaled his pant leg, every time she pounced on his hand while he turned the pages of a book, every time she ran across the chess set in the middle of a game. She'd just stare at him for a long moment, like she wondered what his problem was, then she'd be off again.

Charles hadn't been much of a cat person before, but he was becoming quite smitten with this one. She was so irrepressibly alive, in a house that had seen too much loss and pain. Something had broken between them all that day in Cuba. Even though Erik and Raven had ultimately returned, mere minutes after they had gone, the damage had been done and none of them had found a way forward yet.

Sean and Alex and Hank expected Charles to be bitter. Erik, too. But the reality was just _living_ was taking every scrap of energy he possessed. He had nothing left for bitterness or hate. Nothing left for anything beyond frustration or exhaustion, save for the occasional hot bolt of anger that flashed and faded like lightning. Had thought he had nothing left for laughter until Pixel had leapt up onto the table at breakfast, stolen Alex's last strip of bacon, and zoomed off to enjoy her prize.

Had thought he had nothing left for contentment until he'd awoken to find a tiny furball snuggled into the center of his chest. He stroked her head with a fingertip, and she opened a sleepy golden eye and purred.

“Charles?” Erik barged into his bedroom. He was the only one who'd just barge in; even Raven usually knocked. “This is the last straw.” He held up one of his black turtlenecks, now covered in downy white fur. “This fur is everywhere. How does one tiny kitten produce so much fur? I think you need to shave her.”

“I'm not shaving her. And cats have approximately 100,000 hairs per square inch, so even this one probably has several million.”

Erik raised an eyebrow. “You know that how?”

Charles shrugged, which elicited a sleepy mew of protest from Pixel.

“You have officially joined the ranks of the cat-crazy.”

“Have you even felt her fur?” Charles said, ignoring Erik's barb. “She's _really_ soft.”

Erik looked like he might flee from the room, but he just shook his head.

Charles patted the bed beside his hip. “Sit down a minute and give me your hand.” Once Erik would have sat beside him like he belonged there. Once. No more.

Right now Erik looked even more like he wanted to flee, but finally he advanced and sat gingerly beside Charles. “Is this okay?”

Now was _not_ the time to remind Erik that he couldn't feel Erik's thigh as it pressed against his hip, or that the last time Erik had held him had been on the beach in Cuba. So he just nodded and held out his hand.

Erik held our his own, let Charles take it.

Charles had forgotten how elegant Erik's hands were, long-fingered and graceful. But he remembered how they had felt on his body on those few stolen nights-- No, that time was gone, and could never be again.

He pushed those thoughts aside, placed Erik's fingers against Pixel's side. The kitten blinked slowly, her face curving in something that resembled a smile, and purred, the vibrations resonating in Charles' chest.

Erik's face lit. “I've never felt anything like this. Except--” His other hand reached up to finger a lock of Charles' hair.

Charles blushed, then scowled. “I'm no pussycat, Erik.”

Erik's hand brushed along his cheek. “No, you're more like a lion. Strong. Arrogant. A natural leader.”

“I'm none of those things,” Charles protested quietly, glancing away, “not anymore.”

“Do you honestly believe that?” Erik's hand cupped his jaw, turned his head until his gaze met Erik's. Those pale grey-blue eyes, normally so cool, sparked and flashed. “Your strength is here,” he tapped Charles' temple, “not in these.” His hand dropped from Charles' view, presumably to touch Charles' insensate legs.

“Easy for you to say,” Charles snapped. “”You're not the one who has to live with this.”

“No,” Erik said quietly, absently petting Pixel, who'd returned to her nap, oblivious to the sudden tension in the room, “I'm the one who has to watch you struggle, the one who has to live with knowing I did this to you.” He hung his head. “I know you hate me--”

“I don't hate you, Erik.” Charles' tone was gentler now. “I could never hate you.”

Erik's pale eyes had gone dull with pain. “How can you not hate me? I shot you. I _crippled_ you.”

“I didn't say I wasn't angry. I am. Sometimes. Furious, even.” Charles' words were carefully measured, but he couldn't quite quash the tremor in his voice.. “You shot me, _and then you left me._ ”

“I came back.” Erik's words were equally measured.

“In body.” This wasn't a conversation Charles had pictured having first thing in the morning, still in bed, with a kitten on his chest. He'd expected to have it on his own terms, when he was ready, when he could go metaphorically toe-to-toe with Erik. Not like this. But it seemed that this was what he had. “You scarcely even talk to me, outside of our chess games and 'pass the pepper' at the dinner table. I thought I meant something to you.”

Erik's eyes were unreadable now, as shuttered and guarded as his mind, but Charles could hear the bleakness and disbelief in his soft words. “Do you truly believe you mean nothing to me?”

“What else am I to believe? You won't touch me. You scarcely even look at me. Am I that repulsive to you now?” Charles was surprised at the level of pent-up vitriol in his voice.

“I have no right!” Erik bellowed.

Pixel stirred, stretched, shot an accusing glare at Erik, then curled up again.

Charles really hoped Raven and the boys hadn't heard that.

“I have no right to touch you after what I did,” Erik repeated in a more moderate tone, “no matter how much I might want to.” He took Charles' hand in his own, squeezed it gently. “I don't deserve you. I never did. You took a broken and bitter man, fueled by rage, who existed solely for revenge, and taught him to laugh, taught him to love.”

Charles' breath caught in his throat. “You – love me?”

“”Of course I do.” He raised Charles' hand to his lips and kissed it. “You make me want to be the better man.”

A vast gulf still separated them, but maybe, just maybe, they could build a bridge to span it. “Then shut up and kiss me.”

Erik leaned forward, but before he could press his lips to Charles', Pixel let out an indignant squeak as she was squished between them, then she rocketed off the bed.

Charles chuckled. Erik shook his head and smiled. Then he tried again.

Their lips met, soft and sweet, a little tentative at first, then deepening with hunger and need. They had a long way to go, a minefield of hurt and mistrust to negotiate their way through, but they'd made a start.

And they had a muant kitten to thank. With catnip. Later.

Erik buried his hands in Charles' hair, slipped his tongue past Charles' lips.

Much later.


End file.
